Live Photos Called 'Best New Feature,' Composed of Separate JPG and MOV Files

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus include several new camera features that have been highly popular in reviews thus far, but there's also a fantastic update to the way photos are displayed on the two devices. With Live Photos, exclusive to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, a bit of motion is captured alongside each photo, enabling short animations that bring each image to life.

To enable Live Photos, the iPhone captures 1.5 seconds before every picture is taken and 1.5 seconds afterwards. The motion is then displayed whenever a 3D Touch force press is used on a photo, activating the animation to add a bit of context.

With iPhone 6s reviews coming out today, we've learned several interesting details about the Live Photos feature, including some negative aspects that Apple's working to improve. We're also able to get an in-depth look at what the reviewers thought of the feature, giving us an idea of whether it's truly useful or more of a gimmick.

live-photo-anatomy-test

Image via TechCrunch

Apple has been quick to point out that a Live Photo is not a video, and it appears the feature is enabled by combining a 12-megapixel JPG with a MOV file. TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino reports (in his full review of the new iPhones) that a Live Photo consists of a JPG combined with a MOV file that contains 45 frames playing back at around 15 frames per second. Combining a JPG with a MOV file means Live Photos take up twice the space of a normal image. Panzarino also shared some tips on getting good Live Photos shots, but said he believes the best use cases are still undiscovered.

In my experience, Live Photos work best when capturing ambience, not action. Because the frame rate is relatively low, moving the camera a ton while you shoot them or having a subject move will display a bit of jitter. If, however, you're shooting a still image with some moving elements, the effect is extraordinary.

According to The New York Times' Brian X. Chen, there's a "short learning curve" for Live Photos, because moving a camera immediately after taking a photo will ruin the Live Photo, something Apple says it will fix in an upcoming software update. There's also no way to remove audio, and editing a Live Photo only applies edits to the still frame.

Two other items that I'd like to see addressed in future software updates: One, when Live Photos are captured, they include audio. I'd like the option to disable that because images alone can speak loudly enough. You also can't edit Live Photos. You can only apply an edit to the still frame, but not the motion frames. It would be ideal to at least be able to make minor adjustments to Live Photos, like increasing brightness or contrast.

The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern calls Live Photos "the phone's best new feature," in her review, and shares a selection of example images that give a good look at how Live Photos look.

Live Photos File Details

Because of the way Live Photos work, combining a MOV file with a JPG file, the full Live Photo experience will only be viewable on iOS devices that run iOS 9, the Apple Watch with watchOS 2, and Macs running OS X El Capitan. Sending a Live Photo by email or directly to non-supported devices, the Live Photo will be stripped of the MOV component and sent as a regular JPG.

live_photo_video
However, when importing Live Photos to your Mac in Yosemite's Photos app, they're imported as a separate JPG and MOV file. When TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino sent a Live Photo to our iPhone 6 running iOS 9, the Live Photo was viewable (with motion) in iOS 9. When imported into Yosemite's Photos, the image was split into the JPG and MOV components. Importing into Photos on OS X El Capitan generates a single photo in the library, and double clicking it plays the video portion of the Live Photo.

As you can see, the JPG and MOV components took up 2.5MB and 1.7MB of space, respectively, for this Live Photo taken with the iPhone 6s back camera. Meanwhile, the front camera took a lower resolution 1MB image, but with the same size 1.7MB MOV file. The MOV resolution was 960x720 at ~12FPS for both sample Live Photos.

We'll learn a lot more about Live Photos this Friday, when the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus become available to the public.

Related Forum: iPhone

Top Rated Comments

dannyyankou Avatar
113 months ago
3D Touch, 12MP 4k camera, and 2GB of ram are all better features.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
113 months ago
That is going to be incredibly confusing for the general consumer.
No it won't. Most consumers don't care how the files are stored. They just know that they'll work on Mac/iOS devices, and not other devices. Simple.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
113 months ago
Android has this for years.
Yeah, that's a classic Apple move -- take something Android or whoever has been doing badly for a while and do it much, much better. See also: Touch ID.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
113 months ago
Android has this for years.
ummm.. no they haven't.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Iconoclysm Avatar
113 months ago
Android has this for years.
Ahh yes, the misinformed "Android already had this" post....always a treat
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dojoman Avatar
113 months ago
Android has this for years.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

General Apps Messages

iMessage Down for Some Users [Update: Service Restored]

Thursday May 16, 2024 3:00 pm PDT by
The iMessage service that Apple users to send messages to one another appears to be down for some users, and messages are failing to go out or are taking an extra long time to send. There are numerous reports about the issue on social networks and a spike of outage reports on Down Detector, but Apple's System Status page is not yet reporting an outage. Update: Apple's status page says...
iOS 17

Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos

Wednesday May 15, 2024 5:29 am PDT by
There are concerning reports on Reddit that Apple's latest iOS 17.5 update has introduced a bug that causes old photos that were deleted – in some cases years ago – to reappear in users' photo libraries. After updating their iPhone, one user said they were shocked to find old NSFW photos that they deleted in 2021 suddenly showing up in photos marked as recently uploaded to iCloud. Other...
iphone 15 pro max vs iphone 16 pro max

iPhone 16 Pro Max Looks This Much Bigger Beside iPhone 15 Pro Max

Thursday May 16, 2024 4:51 am PDT by
This year's upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to get a boost in overall size from 6.7-inches to 6.9-inches, and a new image gives us a good idea of how the current iPhone 15 Pro Max compares to what could be Apple's largest ever iPhone. The image above, posted on X by ZONEofTECH, shows a dummy model representing the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ Max alongside an actual iPhone 15 Pro Max. Dummy...
iOS 17

iOS 17.5 Bug May Also Resurface Deleted Photos on Wiped, Sold Devices

Friday May 17, 2024 12:24 pm PDT by
A bug in iOS 17.5 is apparently causing photos that have been deleted to reappear, and the issue seems to impact even iPhones and iPads that have been erased and sold off to other people. A Reddit user wiped an iPad following Apple's guidelines in September of 2023 before selling it off to a friend. That friend updated the iPad to iPadOS 17.5 this week, and began seeing the Reddit user's old ...
oled m4 ipad pro grainy display reports

OLED iPad Pro Users Report 'Grainy' Displays, But It May Not Be a Defect

Friday May 17, 2024 5:57 am PDT by
Some new M4 iPad Pro models are exhibiting a visible static grain pattern across the OLED display, according to several user reports on Reddit (1, 2, 3) and the MacRumors Forums. Image credit: MacRumors user bk215 Users who see the grain generally report that it is most noticeable in dark environments with the display set at a low to medium brightness while viewing content with gray or muted...
Delta Hands On Feature

iPhone Emulators on the App Store: Game Boy, N64, PS1, PSP, and More

Thursday May 16, 2024 12:45 pm PDT by
In April, Apple updated its guidelines to allow retro game emulators on the App Store, and several popular emulators have already been released. The emulators released so far allow iPhone users to play games released for older consoles from Nintendo, Sony, SEGA, Atari, and others. A list of some popular emulators available on the App Store so far follows. Released Delta Delta is...